toys, crafts and other things

Happy Places

This is Mina, a Cu-Poche Anne doll (* figure, technically, but to me, she’s a doll) who stands about 11cm’s tall. She’s tiny, posable, and desperately in need of a home. Right, Mina?

Uhm… I don’t think this counts as a livable dwelling.

…Yeah, I’m still working on that part. But with a new size doll, comes a need for new size accessories. Mina is a sort of peculiar size, she’s not quite long enough in the legs to comfortably fit in 1:12 scale furniture, but because of her head size, most of it looks fine until she tries to reach the floor. 1:16 scale should work about right, but sometimes her noggin will make that a problem.This is probably why she’s listed as a “non-scale” figure, but I’m not going to let that hold me back.

I only got Mina on the 23rd of June, so she hasn’t been home very long, and aside from a handful of Sylvanian’s I don’t have anything in her size. Most of my dolls are 1:6 scale (think: Barbie) or simply don’t have much stuff of their own because I couldn’t find any locally to purchase, and I got sidetracked from crafting them things myself.

Which meant Mina even had to deal with being carted around in her underwear/nighty for some time as she comes in this cute little pink thing and with no real clothes:

Wheeeeeeeee

With a stand, some extra hands and not much else (aside from that hair clip which you will lose if you’re not very careful). The dress is cute, but it likes to fall down and really feels like taking her around in her underthings.

I think she looks just as cute in her Sylvanian Families dress she “borrowed” from a stray Freya Chocolate Rabbit. Almost Minnie-Mouse like.

Okay, back to the topic! So Mina is new, lacking a home of her own and without much in her size as my Sylvanian’s collection is small, too, so she can’t really rob borrow from the critters for now either.

Then last week I was browsing my local Target (Aus), which is a “Target Country” store which in my experience means “we have almost nothing that you actually want aside from a lot of questionably priced clothes”. The toy section is really just an aisle and not even a full one. It’s mostly lego, blocks, board games, etc.

And then I spotted, on clearance, something I’d been looking at when I went to the supermarket but didn’t want to pay full price for. Something that looked suspiciously like it would fit my new little friend.

Shopkins Happy Places.

This is more like it… but, uh, why do they all have eyes?!I think it’s a little tall for my “room”KITTIES!Will you open them please?

Here are some less indulgent pictures of the packaging. I only got the “Kitty Kitchen Decorator Pack” to start with, because even on clearance, if it didn’t fit her I didn’t really want to waste my money on it as I don’t collect Shopkins.

FrontBackOkay, not entirely less indulgent.

The set comes with twelve displayed pieces, and three blind bags that go with another “room” (there’s a house that goes with these).

Here they are out of the package… that is a lot of faces.

To be honest, they’re really fricken cute. A lot cuter than I expected to find them. Most of the containers open (bread box, bin, egg carton) there is the TINIEST wee lil’ egg to go with the carton and they’re made sturdy enough they could easily survive a kid who is old enough not to try to actually eat them.

But does it fit Mina? Let’s see!

Maybe a touch short?

Considering that these two toy lines are worlds apart, that’s honestly a pretty good fit. Some are an oversized, some are a bit undersized, but if it’s in a setting where these more cartoonish accessories would work, I think. Let’s see some more:

Now with super tiny dustpan and broom, and wood holder and log that came in the blind bags. Not pictured: two pink floor tiles that also came with it.Not an ideal angle!!!!

The most important thing to me was that she could sit on the chair. It takes a bit of finagling to get her to balance (that head), but once you do it’s actually a really good height for her because as you can see in the second picture, her legs are tiny.

Now, when considering if these are worth it, I need to emphasise a few points:

I am not interested in Shopkins for Shopkins sake. I did get them for Mina, not just for kicks. They’re cute, for sure, but I feel a bit weird about the regular line of Shopkins and the way (to me) it manages to turn shopping itself into a toy. Somehow it feels they do it better than all the shop playsets and etc. Maybe it’s because it’s a franchise that mostly relies on blind bags? Not sure, but I always feel a little weird buying them. It could be all those wee little eyes.

This is probably not the post to see if your kid wants the Kitty Kitchen unless your kid has a Cu-Poche or other 3-4″ figure. At the moment I’m still trying to work out the best way to do this whole review thing, and as you can see by Mina’s “room” things aren’t fully set up yet.

With that being said, some final thoughts:

The fact that when you set up the Happy Homes playset (aka, the house part of this line) you end up with an entire house full of faces staring at you, of animals, including on the toilet, does bother me a bit so even though I got this set, and later a couple more for Mina, I don’t think I’ll be able to use them all at once, in one house…

In the context of using them for non-shopkins dolls and scenes, I think they work best as cute little accents — we have them in real life, too. Smiley pillows, clocks, etc. if you’re okay with the basic shapes, I also think they’re a good candidate for repainting, though I’m not entirely sure what painting them successfully would entail as from the outside of the packets I still have, I can’t tell what plastic they’re made of (or rubber? Vinyl?).

They would also be great if you just want your dolls to live in a sweet little world. i would caution against getting the house, though, it’s not very deep and so all the Shopkins/Petkins do fill it up very fast, if you watch any youtube videos on if you’ll soon see as much.

It’s also important to note that the scale is a bit all over the place, so if you have a doll you want to use them for it may be best to take them with you and eyeball it. Scaling in toy items is pretty all over the place, but I find these to be a bit worse than usual, perhaps because the dolls they are made for also have oversized heads, or out of a desire to be cute.

Ultimately I am glad I brought them, they’re solid, and sometimes even functional (opening containers, sturdy chairs, etc). If you can get over the feeling you’re being watched, they work quite nicely. Especially for someone like Mina who is herself a bit over the top cutesy.

This is all really nice… but what about my room?

Uhm. I’m still working on that problem. Sorry, Mina.

Thank you for reading! Please feel free to share any thoughts in the comments. 🙂